A guest commentary in Die Welt argues that the West needs a new alliance against China outside of NATO.
German newspaper Die Welt published a guest commentary on its website on Saturday (May 8), “The West Needs a New Anti-Chinese Alliance Beyond NATO”. The article was written by Hans-Peter Bartels, the Bundestag’s defense attaché, and Omid Nouripour, the Greens’ Bundestag foreign policy spokesman.
The article begins bluntly: “If China (the Communist Party) continues to rise geopolitically as Beijing plans, and the West continues to be so divided and weak as it is now, the 21st century may increasingly become a century under Chinese (Communist) hegemony.” “All should have no illusions: the Chinese (Communist) state is not only a regulated, market-influenced capitalist economy, but also a brutal Communist dictatorship.” The author then cites Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan, which has been “under constant threat of aggression,” as well as the June 4 incident, as examples to illustrate this point.
“Internal and External Pressures on Liberal Democracy”
The article goes on to analyze “the reawakening world power that is now expanding its political and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as in Africa and Europe.” After using the “Belt and Road” as an example, the author notes that the CCP is also expanding its armaments, citing the construction of its aircraft carriers and its goal of countering the United States. The author also notes the Chinese attitude toward the U.S. side at the recently held Alaska talks.
The author of this guest commentary in Le Monde also finds that liberal democracy is under pressure not only from outside but also from within: “Dictatorships have more friends than everyone thinks.” “Some now think they can follow the example of the Chinese (communist) state in the following areas: the economy, numbers, policies to fight the new crown epidemic.”
“NATO is not enough.”
Under the last subheading of the article, “NATO is not enough,” the author states, “The time has come for a strategic stocktaking analysis and regrouping of Western democracies. For this reason, the trans-Pacific NATO alliance is not enough. The organization was formed in 1949 after World War II, when the West sought to defend itself against the second largest nuclear power, Stalin’s Soviet Union.”
The authors of the article argue that the “West” needs to be redefined, and that the criteria for defining it are not literal, but based on the same values. In addition to NATO and the G7, there is a need for “additional forms of alliance and dialogue that explicitly include democracies outside the Atlantic region. For example, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan and India. And some of these countries do not consider themselves to be ‘Western’ because of their colonial trauma.”
In the author’s view, “Democracy and freedom are not about north, south, east, west, continent, nationality or religion: the universality of human rights, the rule of law, the separation of powers, popular sovereignty and representative democracy are not just ‘Western’ values, but are hard-won principles of order in today’s free world of humanity. (They should be) everywhere.”
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